What were some of the first things you did when you began trading stocks?

Question

How was it, and what happened? Anything good?

Answer 1

an easy way to lose money if you dont have the time to study.

Personally I have read 3 books, I'm reading a lot on Internet, and started to trade stock on investopedia game, jut to have a closer look before using real money.

Answer 2

Investing or trading in stocks is not child's play. You have to take into consideration the brokerage charged from you and the taxes levied. For most of the people, it's just a matter of time before they stumble on some bad experience. In our case, it was the very first trade itself. Over time, we learned that one has to be patient... and not trading, but long-term investing is the way to go. We had to wait for an year or so before our investment (we intended trading intially, but had to keep the stocks coz we were in loss) in tata chemicals came  back to the buying price. We sold it at the buying price hence making a loss equivalent to the brokerage etc charged. If I were to take a decision on that today, I would have clinged onto it until it doubled or so. Believe me, long term investing is the best option around.

Answer 3

This "INVESTMENT GUIDE" is more helpful for you to make your money to make money for you,without taking any risk.

To gain more information TO DO FIRST WHEN WE BEGIN TRADING STOCKS,just gothrough the site

http://www.savings4future.com .........

GOOD LUCK

Answer 4

Trading stocks is NOT for the undereducated.  You will get poor.  Investing stocks is easier ... I mean you are going for the long haul with investing ... trading means you keep the stock for a short time period and hopefully flip a profit.  You must really know what you are doing.

I've been investing since 1982 ... no on line stuff back then, but as soon as it came available I went on line with Fidelity.

I both long-term invest and trade because some stocks just can't be held very long.  Others you never want to sell because they just keep giving you value.  Some stocks I hold for a few hours ... I call that a "rental."

Start out by finding a few good books.  Jim Cramer offers "Stay Mad for Life" for beginners.  He bothers to explain the terms.  I'm not convinced he is the best stockpicker around, but he does understand the market.

If you prefer on line education, try ...

Morningstar Classroom ... morningstar.com (I think ... look at the tabs at the top)

Money-and-investing.com is a terrific site, but better if you understand some of the terms.  Same with Stockpickr.com (no "e" in picker), but a good site with tons of info.

Investing is very frustrating, but also very rewarding.  I retired at 53 and continue to battle Mother Market daily.  It is a challenge, and I hate to lose.  Just be patient and learn first.  I suggest trading "on paper" before you plunk your money down.  In other words, decide to buy a company you like, say XYZ, on July 23 for a given price.  Pretend that you make the purchase and watch the stock for a few weeks or months.  Start with five stocks and paper trade.  Wait several months ... spend this time learning by reading, etc ... then see if you made any good decisions with those "trades" you made on July 23.  If they were winners, find out why.  If they lost, definitely find out why.  Tedious process, but necessary.

I wish you luck!

Uppity Wench

Answer 5

I´ve been investing for more than 20 years and trading for almost 14, and I can tell you that if you want to make BIG and FAST profits, I recommend you trading rather than investing, trading can help you to go from rags to rich.

If you are investing, you must have already achieved some degree of financial success, long term stock investing and FOREX can help you to diversify your money and become much richer than you are today.

My experiences as a Nasdaq Market Maker, Head trader of several brokerage firms, and currently as a professional trader and private hedge fund manager, I can suggest you that:

We trade because we want quick, short term profits on a consistent basis. We want to cash flow the market. Milk it like a cow.

Make consistent, small, short term gains rather than trying to hit a home run on every trade. Don't ever forget that.

Don't marry a stock, marry the idea of making money trading stocks. That's the only way to do it.

For me "All stocks are equally worthless”

I don't hold on to any illusion that the stock market will continue to go up and provide a nice retirement for me.

I could care less which way the market goes. It's irrelevant to me if the market goes higher, crashes or moves sideways for the next 50 years. I really could care less. Stocks are just four letters with two prices next to them that I use to make a living trading.

Trade ONLY when you have a clear, easy and identifiable advantage, because without a CLEAR EDGE your odds of success are NO better than a flip of a coin… That´s why so many new traders (and investors) lose money.

Take a look at any daily chart of any index or stock and you'll probably see the most volatility and the biggest opportunity for profit during the first Hour of the stock market's opening.

The popular thinking and conventional wisdom is that you should wait about an hour before you start trading.

But if you do, you'll miss the big, fast moves that stocks make as all the amateurs let their emotions out through their online accounts, usually right after they read some news headline or hear Maria Bartiromo go off about a stock on CNBC.

It's easy to see why trading the open is the market's prime time for profiting from other online traders.

The market's open is very volatile - that is the perfect environment for LARGE, FAST profits.

Learn to trade as a professional Market Maker, not as an emotionally driven amateur trader or investor with few thousand dollars in an account at Etrade.

There isn't any other time during the day or any stock you can invest in, that can make you 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 or more points in minutes OTHER than during the first hour the stock market is open, that means: if you are buying or selling short a 1000 shares per transaction, you´ll make $1000,$2000,$3000,$5000 or $7000 Usd "IN MINUTES !!!" not in a day, not in a week, not in a month or in a year, in less than 60 minutes... That's why I love trading the open so much.

I trade only when I have an edge and that means "only the first hour the market is open".

If you are a beginning trader, you can give yourself an unfair advantage in the market trading this way.

I can carry on for hours on how to make money trading online, but if you ask me:

"What is your best advise?

I will say:

Give yourself a BIG favor and go to this "Top Secret" site and learn how to get by yourself the BEST stocks that will make the largest and fastest day trading profits you´ve ever seen.

www.onehourtrading.com

After you review this site you won´t need any system, strategy, book, software, guru or mentor to tell you what to do, you will be able to profit HUGE every day.

Besides, you´ll learn:

• The right amount of money to start trading…

• The best Online broker out there…

• Learn how to enter and exit a trade in seconds making Huge profits…

• Make more money than most day traders simply by trading one hour a day!!!

• How to reduce stress, limit risk and stay disciplined like a Pro.

• The 4 basic rules you should know, that every successful trader know, and amateurs don´t even imagine.

• How to trade against the amateurs and avoid like the plague doing it against the professionals , and why this will put you ONE STEP AHEAD of all traders.

• What causes more devastating trading loses than any other factor... and... How to avoid this pitfall! (Even savvy traders often fall victim to this! )

• Not to spend most of your day in front of a computer dealing with complex charts, software or technical analysis.

• Learn how to read the market´s open to make a huge profit just a few minutes after the opening bell.

All this and a lot more…

Good luck and good trading,

John Fontaine

Answer 6

Before any one invest or trade, they must have put together a game plan for themselves to follow

1 - A written sound trading/investment plan with rules that will not only help you but more importantly protect you, mostly from yourself.

2 - Sufficient trading/investment capital.  Use your own money, there’s no need to go into debt so that you trade/invest.

3 - A written money management program in place.

4 – A full and complete understanding of the rules & regulations of the industry.

You make the rules and you follow them.  Here are some of the rules that I found very helpful and at time life savings.

The first and primary rule should be never enter into a trade without knowing when and where you’re going to close the trade.

Never invest on emotions; feelings have no place in determining investments.

Only buy stocks with real sales and real earnings, does not apply to pennystocks since they are c**p shoots and are traded as fun things and not as investments.

Only consider buying stocks with each of the last three years' earnings up 25%+, return on equity of 17%+ and recent earnings and sales accelerating.

Avoid cheap stocks, buy only higher quality stocks selling $10 a share and higher.

Never buy if the firm is filing or in bankruptcy.

Learn how to use charts to see sound bases and exact buy points.

Stay with up trending stocks, never buy on down trends. This does mean “the trend is your friend”.

Always buy companies with new ideas, styles or products.  

Cut every loss when it’s 8%-10% below your cost. Make no exceptions so you can always avoid huge, damaging losses. You can always average “up”..

Follow selling rules on when to sell and take profit on the way up.

Never average down

Always sell when management cuts sales or earnings forecasts

Buy when market indexes are in an uptrend. Reduce investments and raise cash when general market indexes show five or more days of volume distribution.

Pick companies with management ownership of stock.

Select stocks with increasing institutional sponsorship in recent quarters.

Current quarterly after-tax profit margins should be improving, near their peak and among the best in the stock's industry

Don’t buy because of dividends or P-E ratios.

Find out if the market currently favors big-cap or small-cap stocks.

If you follow these rules, you will never have a major loss, you will always have more gains than losses, and your money will always be protected. And remember is not always about making money, it just as important to protect what you have,

Answer 7

I started out trying to be clever and make lots of money real fast (just like the get-rich-quick schemes you see all over the internet). I did technical analysis, charting, day trading, margin trading, penny stocks, and trading on stock tips. I started out losing a lot of money.

I didn't start making lots of money until I gave up going for the quick profit.